Rabbi Steven Foster greets grandson Ozzie Foster, 4, in the boy’s classroom at Temple Emanuel. Foster is working on his final Yom Kippur sermonafter four decades with the Denver congregation. “I have lots of strong opinions fairly liberal opinions,” he says.

The holiest day of the Jewish calendar, Yom Kippur, is a time of introspection and fresh beginnings.

For Rabbi Steven Foster, it also means contemplating a big finish.

This Yom Kippur, which begins today at sundown, is the last for Foster as senior rabbi of the Rocky Mountain region’s oldest and largest Jewish congregation.

After four decades with Temple Emanuel’s Reform congregation, the 65-year-old Foster, the ferociously compassionate dean of Denver’s rabbinate, plans to retire at the end of June.

When Foster delivers a sermon, he said, he likes to pick out five or six faces in his congregation — regulars with regular seats — to address them directly, to gauge their reactions. Two of these longtime members are gone this year, and Foster is keenly aware of their passing.

He is that rare rabbi who spent his whole career in one synagogue.

“Foster is the rabbi’s rabbi,” said Rabbi Eliot Baskin of Jewish Family Service and a past president of the Rocky Mountain Rabbinical Council. “Foster not only is the dean of the Denver rabbinate, he’s the dean of Denver clergy.”

When Foster started out, he said, there were 25,000 Jews in the Denver metro area. There are now about 84,000. When he began, there were six or seven rabbis. Now there are 25.

“What we have done in the last 40 years — and I want to take a little credit for it — has had an impact on the issue of interfaith marriage,” Foster said. “We’re more welcoming to interfaith families.”

About half of Denver’s Jewish children live in interfaith households, according to a 2007 survey.

From the beginning, Foster has been at the front lines of liberal activism and interfaith dialogue. His wife, Joyce, is a freshman Democratic state senator and former Denver councilwoman. And Foster is not shy about talking politics.

“I have lots of strong opinions — fairly liberal opinions,” Foster said. “I’m not afraid to talk about those ideas from the pulpit.”

Not every one of the 2,100 member households of Temple Emanuel likes it, he said.

“When I came here, busing (for racial integration) was a big issue. Many members in this congregation were against that,” Foster said. “Gay rights are the next stage. Either we are all created in God’s image, or we’re not.”

Foster said if congregants find him objectionable, they can usually find someone else to like on the synagogue’s large staff.

Foster also reflected more seriously, for Yom Kippur, on what he says are his real shortcomings.

“I’m not as patient as I ought to be. I sometimes don’t listen, even as I tell everyone else they ought to listen,” Foster said. “Sometimes I’m too critical too fast. I’m not quick to praise.”

It’s an accurate list, Bronitsky said.

“We’re sometimes inconsistent and don’t put our philosophy to work,” Foster said. “That is hypocrisy. I fall into that category a lot. But I don’t use the word a lot anymore. I save it for special occasions.”

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